Federal prosecutors said the men sold cocaine, crack, heroin, and drugs laced with fentanyl at an open-air drug market near West Chicago and North Trumbull. All the men face drug charges, and a few are also charged with gun crimes.
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Prosecutors said many of the men charged, including the group's leader, are allegedly members of the Traveling Vice Lords street gangs.
Prosecutors allege a complex system of distributing fentanyl-laced heroin in their 106-page complaint.
"Fentanyl is about 53 times more potent than heroin," explained Dr. Celeste Napier, Rush University Medical Center, Center for Compulsive Behavior and Addiction. "It's about 100 times more potent than morphine."
Prosecutors said that law enforcement Wednesday executed searches of multiple locations in the city and suburbs and seized approximately 10 firearms, two 50-round drum ammunition magazines, several extended ammunition magazines, more than a kilogram of cocaine, more than 250 grams of heroin containing fentanyl, and approximately nine vehicles allegedly used for drug trafficking.
Napier said fentanyl is the reason opioid overdoses have been on the rise.
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"It's always important when these rings get disrupted and home it reduces the amount of fentanyl and heroin that are available to that particular neighborhood," she said.
Ten of the men appeared in court at the Dirksen Federal Building Wednesday to hear the charges against them. One man was not in court because he was recently arrested while illegally possessing a loaded handgun on a CTA Green Line train, prosecutors said. Two other defendants did not appear in court and no explanation was provided.
Prosecutors said that in addition to the federal charges, 19 other people were charged in state court as a result of the multi-year joint investigation led by Homeland Security Investigations, the Chicago Police Department and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division.
Their next court date was not immediately known.
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